


isle unto thyself

by baessclarinet



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, One Shot, Songfic, post time skip dimitri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27633064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baessclarinet/pseuds/baessclarinet
Summary: Post time skip, Azure Moon spoilers.Byleth finds Dimitri after she wakes up from her long slumber. She is tired and confused and finding Dimitri like this didn't help. Will she ever be able to reach him again?Inspired by "Isle Unto Thyself" by Miracle Musical.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth
Kudos: 11





	isle unto thyself

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the song “Isle Unto Thyself” by Miracle Musical. I highly encourage you to listen to it before you read this. Some of the lyrics are definitely dropped in here, hehe.
> 
> This is just me writing how I imagine Byleth might have felt finding Dimitri after the time skip. I will happily accept constructive criticism.

Byleth felt exhausted as she walked up the steps of the Goddess Tower. She knew she had been resting, for five years it seemed, but she was still tired. She stepped over bodies of soldiers. She stopped and looked down at one, recognizing the emblem on its armor. A soldier from the Empire. She let out a small huff, wondering what they were doing here and what slaughtered so many of them. 

‘Five years,’ she thought. ‘That villager said it had been five years since the monastery fell.’ She didn’t even remember it falling. All she remembered was herself falling, after being blasted with a spell. She remembered Rhea’s cry of distress, but she couldn’t see her once she had fallen into the ravine. She couldn’t even remember what had woken her up.

She continued up the steps, following the light that was seeping in. She found it slightly humorous that she had awoken at dawn, almost like she hadn’t missed anything at all and had just been resting the night after a battle. She knew it was not so and her head hurt trying to figure out how she had been asleep so long.

As she approached the top of the stairs, she realized the bodies had stopped. No one had gotten to the top of the tower before dying, or all of these soldiers had been thrown down the stairs. She shuddered at the thought. She did enjoy a good fight, but this was something different. She figured that whatever had been doing this was just trying to survive.

She entered the final room at the top of the tower and she turned, only to see a shadow sitting away from the light. She paused, not sure whether or not to approach. As the sun continued to rise, a beam caught part of the shielded face. She immediately recognized it. Dimitri. 

She took a few more steps forward, stopping for a moment in the light to take a long look at Dimitri. His hair had gotten longer, he was wearing armor she didn’t recognize and he was wearing an eye patch. Dried blood was splattered all over his face and hair and she realized that he was what happened to all of the soldiers that littered the stairs. Her breath hitched as she wondered what had happened to him in the past five years. What was he doing here?

As he looked up to her, she was hit with the memory of when she fell.

———————

She braced as the spell flew towards her, putting her arms up in a defensive position. She could barely see the smirk of the monster that sent it as it blasted her away from Rhea. She landed on rocky ground and tried to place herself soundly, but the ground moved underneath her. She felt terror race through her veins as she realized she was about to fall.

In the next moment, the ground broke beneath her and she fell with it. As she began to fall, she looked up to see Rhea in her immaculate form, letting out a roar of upset and distress. Byleth knew she was doomed as she fell to the bottom of the ravine.

She landed at the bottom with a thud, feeling her bones shattering on impact. She let out a painful moan, followed by a scream. She wasn’t sure if anyone could hear her or would bother to look for her, but she knew she had to try. She shouted as loudly as her broken ribs could allow, wondering why she wasn’t dead. Panic set in as she heard the battle continue above her. Her father had always told her to find him or call for him when she was injured - so in a last ditch effort, she started calling for him.

‘Oh, foolish child,’ she heard a familiar voice laugh. ‘It’s a good thing I’m here.’ 

Byleth looked up to see Sothis floating above her. She thought maybe she was going crazy, or that death was setting in and she was seeing things. It had been so long since she had seen Sothis or even heard her voice. She was convinced she would never see Sothis again after fusing with her.

“Please help me,” Byleth cried. 

‘What do you think I’m doing?’ Sothis asked. ‘Follow me, Byleth.’ 

Byleth’s mouth opened to respond, about to respond with wit about how her body was basically broken, but she was enveloped by darkness and a strange feeling of peace. She closed her eyes and prayed that Sothis would mend her.

———————

Byleth was brought back to reality by Dimitri’s voice.

“I should have known that one day you would be haunting me as well.”

She realized she was holding her hand out towards him and he had turned his face away from hers. 

“I am not a ghost, Dimitri,” she responded. He grunted in response and used what strength he had left to stand. She brought her hand back to her side and she stepped back as he towered over her. She took in a deep breath, quickly glancing over him. She barely recognized him and she knew deep down that these five years had not been kind to him. She could see that he was exhausted.

“You...what must I do to be rid of you?” he questioned. A feeling of grief began to wash over her. He must have thought her to be dead. Well, she might have been. She still wasn’t entirely sure what Sothis had done or where she had been. 

“I will kill that woman, I swear it. Do not look upon me with scorn in your eyes!”

If she had a heart, this is where it would have broken.

“What are you talking about?” She could hear the tremble in her voice.

He paused for a moment and his eyes widened as reality hit him.

“You...it can’t be! You’re alive?!”

———————

It was nearing dusk when Byleth decided to approach Dimitri again. No one who had shown up for the reunion knew where he went, they only knew he stormed off after clearing out the thieves in the town. She headed to the Goddess Tower, wondering when they would be able to clear out the bodies of the soldiers. It would take some people with grit and she couldn’t imagine some of the Blue Lions would be up for it.

As she entered the cathedral, she could only see his back. The diminishing light from the sun shone onto him, cloaking him in an orange hue. She found it to be beautiful, but refrained from saying so. She approached him, stepping up next to him. She looked up to his face, but he did not meet her gaze. He stared at the rubble, mumbling to himself.

She placed a hand on his arm, startling him out of whatever hypnosis he was under. He stepped away from her touch and glanced over to her, meeting her gaze with a look in his eye that she had never seen.

“What do you want?” he grumbled.

Byleth honestly did not know. She was caught off guard by not being able to read him. She couldn’t answer his question and she clearly didn’t answer it quickly enough.

“If you’re just going to stare at me with that empty look, I’d rather you kill me here. I don’t need your pity,” he snapped. She gasped slightly, wondering how he could even suggest such an action. He must have seen her surprised look and he chuckled bitterly, looking away from her.

“There is nothing you can do to help me, Professor. I am a dead man. I have no heart. I do not deserve to be revived.” 

She moved in front of him and tried to get him to look into her eyes. 

“Dimitri, you are not a dead man,” she responded. “You are clearly here. I do not know what happened to you, but you survived.” 

He avoided her gaze but she grabbed his hands, holding them within her own. He looked down to their hands and he looked back up at her, removing his hands from hers. 

“Why do murderous animals survive?” he asked. She again couldn’t answer his question. He continued, “Please do not try to save me. I will only hurt you.”

She pursed her lips, not allowing herself to respond with what she really wanted to say. ‘You have a heart you haven’t felt in a long time,’ she thought to herself. She sighed and realized he was not going to open up to her tonight. It might take a long time for that to happen again. She began to make her way back to her quarters. She stopped at the entrance to the cathedral and turned to look at Dimitri. He was standing still, still staring at the rubble.

‘Why would you hurt me?’ 

She turned back towards the bridge and her footsteps echoed through the empty halls. 

‘Can we heal?’


End file.
